Moments We Pass By
by LilyandIvy
Summary: The moments in Fruits Basket that the lovely Natsuki Takaya neglected to write out and...as you'll soon see, it was for a good reason.
1. Kana's Wedding

I stood, waiting for my cue.

I could feel the white material, rustling softly whenever I moved, resting on my body. Somehow, it felt insubstantial. Like a glance could tear it off, stain it, and discard it. I clung to the flowers, white roses and light pink lilies, as if they were a shield.

Mayu gave me a wink and a grin, and started down the aisle, dressed in the pink dress I had chosen, hoping it would compliment her tall, slender figure. I had made her take down her hair, and had it curled. She looked like the woman she was born to be.

And what about me? This was my special day, the day I was supposed to feel buoyed by love, dancing on a cloud, head among the stars…the day I was supposed to fall in love with him all over again.

There was supposed to be a certain magic in this day, a charge in the air I had never felt before. Yet I felt no magic. I only felt an imitation of one.

I felt as if I had known a deeper, more bittersweet magic. One that tore apart lives, lovers and hopes. It was confusing. I had never known such magic. Where could I have?

The only remaining shred of my rational mind recognized the music, and moved slowly, to the beat, smiling shyly, the veil swaying, tickling my cheek. I raised my eyes from the bouquet to the man standing, waiting for me. A surge of heat overcame me, coloring my cheeks. I was so deeply in love with him.

A rare moment of rebellion overtook me, dragging me deeply inside some darkness. The contrast between the moment of love and guilt was so startling I stumbled down the aisle.

I felt some knowledge boiling up from the center of my being, the black feelings stirring in the bottom of my heart. I was torn between letting the knowledge blossom, knowing what I had wanted to forget, and shoving it back into the bottom of my soul, refusing it to let it stain this perfect day, this perfect moment.

Before I could make my decision, a hand came down and heaved it down, burying it under shallower secrets. In the terrible moment before that hand came down, I knew why this man I was pledging myself didn't feel like my truest love.

Because I had known truer, soul-touching love.

Because I had to leave the man I had wanted to live the rest of my life with.

I was at the altar now, looking into the eyes of the man I had wrongly decided to promise my life and soul to. In that moment, I had wanted to flee back down the aisle, and seek out my old employer and distant relative.

But _this_ man, the one I had thought I had loved, didn't deserve that. He loved me, even if I no longer reciprocated that feeling. I couldn't do that to him. And the memory of my truest love faded back down into me, and I forgot about him.

My fiancée smiled at me, and the preacher said the words I was waiting for.

My voice, loud and clear: "I do."


	2. New Year's Eve

Chapter 2:

New Year's Eve

Tohru could still see their backs, and was still waving, even though they weren't looking at her anymore.

They were going to the Sohma house, to Akito, deliciously prepared food, and family they hadn't seen in ages. And they hadn't wanted to go. Tohru had had to prove to them her nonchalance to their absence, and force them to go.

Only when she couldn't see them anymore did she go back inside, closing the door behind her. She reheated the leftovers from the night before, and ate it with the new year's cakes. She thought of Hana and Uo, eating with their families at this very moment, and wished them luck for the coming year. She thought of her grandfather, with his family, and smiled. She wondered, if there was indeed an afterlife, if her mother was looking down at her and the Sohmas, wishing them a lucky new year.

She finished her meal and washed the dishes. Moving like a ghost, she climbed the stairs to her new room. On her desk was a picture of her mother. She took it and crept into Shigure's study. She knew he had a song somewhere in there that her mother had loved while she was still living, and had played at every New Year. She found it, and, clutching both record and photograph to her chest, she moved back down to the dining room, where a warm kotatsu awaited her. She put on the record, sat down at the kotatsu, and set her mother's picture in front of her, remembering all the New Years she and her mother had spent together.

She could see her old apartment's living room, her mother making an exemplary craft for Tohru to imitate. She set it on the table, and gave Tohru the paper that would make the craft. Tohru had struggled for minutes on end, bending and twisting the paper into abstract art. Her mother, having finished three or four of the things already, had smiled and helped Tohru. Finally, Tohru was able to fold the paper into the crane.

Her mother had smiled at Tohru's enthusiasm, and had told her that the cranes could grant her wish, if she folded a thousand of them. Tohru's face went wide with wonder for a moment, then she told her mother that one day, she _would_ fold a thousand cranes, and have a wish come true.

Her mother laughed, saying that surely the wish would come true.

_Mother, if I fold a thousand cranes, will you come back to me?_

Footsteps came running to the door. For one wild moment, Tohru remembered she hadn't locked the door when she had come in, and wondered if it was a thief, and if the thief would kill her for interrupting his burglary.

The door flung open, revealing Kyo and Yuki, panting as if they had just run for miles. Her head looked up, and she felt one of the tears she had held captive for so long escape, and threatened to spill over her unto her cheeks. Yuki's hand came up, took the tear and showed it to her.

She hesitated, then made up some excuse for her tears, some flimsy transparent excuse, anything but having to say why she was really crying. But she couldn't even get through her excuses until they both collapsed on the floor, telling her about the first sunrise of the new year and new year's cakes.

The only thing she could say was, "O-o-okay."


	3. Hatsuharu's Search

**A:N/ This chapter's about Hatsuharu, searching for Kisa. And I couldn't help but put some Haru/Rin stuff in there...well, it stays mostly on track. Hope you enjoy.**

When he got the call, he was thinking of soba.

He didn't know why, but he was thinking of soba and the different flavors and a thousand different things about soba. He was standing at his cupboards, looking for the ingredients to make soba, when the phone rang.

Sighing, he stepped away and turned, knowing where the phone would be. He pressed his thumb against the largest button. "Yes?"

"Hatsuharu-san," came a breathless woman's voice, "this is Sohma Yori, Kisa's mother."

"All right, Yori-san. What do you want with me?" Haru said, looking resignedly at the cupboards.

"Kisa's missing."

He froze, his mind reeling with different images.

Kisa, walking home, not speaking to her mother, Momiji or Haru, though they had all come to get her.

Yuki, trapped in a room, his only visitors Akito and Haru, accompanied by Rin.

Kisa, knocking on his door one rainy afternoon, looking for someone to talk to, even though she hadn't spoken a word the entire time.

Shigure's face as Haru had agreed to call him "sensei".

"Could you help look for her, Hatsuharu-san?"

"Yes," Haru said, turning off the phone, all thoughts of soba forgotten.

He pulled on his shoes and locked the door behind him. He didn't even think about his bike, tied in front of his home, or his coat, hanging on a hook. He just started walking, not calling her name or asking passerbys if they had seen an orange-haired girl lately. He just walked.

He knew where her school was, and where her house was. He knew the routes she would take. She should have been home hours ago, so this was not an overreaction on her mother's part.

Her mother and whatever other people she could find would be looking near the route Kisa took to school, so there was no point looking there.

Not knowing where to look, he thought of the places she would go. There was the supermarket, the restaurants nearby, the park, and scores of apartments. She wouldn't be in any of those places.

He sighed, thinking about calling Yuki and sensei, but he knew that Tohru would want to come out too, and in this weather, she could get a cold and then Kyo would kill him.

Having nothing better to do, he wandered around aimlessly, knowing that soon he would be just as lost as Kisa. But he had no better tactic to approaching this, and being lost for a few days would be worth it if Kisa was found.

The rain was coming down heavily now. He saw mothers beckoning children back into homes, he saw people hurrying to get done with the day's errands, before retiring back into their warm apartments. He saw one couple, oblivious to the rain, retreating into the privacy of a park.

The thought pained him, of other couples in love when his own lover had brutally broken it off with him. All he had to do was close his eyes, and he could see her there, cut and bruised. He had tried to ask her how she had gotten this way, but then she had spoken the words that had made him forget all about her condition.

And now, after so many sleepless nights, he was able to see past her words and remember what she looked like, and felt the question renewing itself. How could she have gotten so battered? None of the sicknesses she had would cause that…had she gone through a giant blender or what?

A part of him wanted to run over to her house in the Sohma compound and talk to her, but the rational part of his mind told him she'd just argue and throw things at him.

"Haru?"

"Hmm?" he asked, looking around and seeing no one.

"Haru!"

"Oh, hey, Hiro," Haru said, turning to see the short boy.

"Are you looking for Kisa too?" asked Hiro.

"Yeah. Seen anything?"

"No. Talked to her mother yet?"

"No."

"So, she could be found right now, and we wouldn't know it."

"Yeah…"

They both looked at each other.

"I'll go find a pay phone."

"Good idea."

Haru gave Hiro some loose change, and waited outside the phone booth while Hiro dialed the number, messed up, and had to start over. Twice. Haru was tapping his foot in a mood that was on the verge of Black, when the call got through.

"Hey, Yori-san…Yeah, did you guys find Kisa yet? No? Oh, well, Haru and I were just checking…All right…yeah, we'll call if we find her…see you later…"

"Nothing?"

"Yeah."

"All right, see you later, kid."

"But--"

"We'll cover more ground this way. Easier to find her."

"Yeah…"

"Worried?" Haru asked.

"What would make you say that?" Hiro demanded.

"The way you keep fidgeting might have tipped me off, or the way you kind of deflated like a balloon after you heard they haven't found her yet."

Hiro made a sound, and looked away, fists clenched. Haru waited for the inevitable verbal swords to come out, or the fists to turn into punches, but Hiro did neither, and simply walked away.

"Surprising kid," Haru muttered, before going off in the opposite direction.

It wasn't too long after that, that he found Kisa, in tiger form, sitting in a planter that the city council put out to make the city look more "natural".

"Found you," he said, picking her up. Ignoring her bites and scratches, he tried to remember where he came back from.

"Damn," he said, realizing he had no idea how to get back.

He paused for a moment and thought. He'd given his only pocket money to Hiro to pay for the phone call, and he had forgotten his cell phone in his coat pocket. He had no idea what part of the city he was in, and Kisa, who may or may not know, wasn't going to tell him anything.

Having no better thought than to wander about and hope he saw a sign, Haru resigned himself to the inevitable and hoped Kisa thoroughly enjoyed getting soaked, because it would be a long time before she saw anything but rain.


	4. Katsuya's Death

**A/N: Well, folks, hope you stick with me on this one, it's nearly three thousand words. What can I say, Katsuya's death is a bit of a moment we pass by in Furuba. Anyway. So, guess what I should be doing right now? That's right, studying. But to hell with that. Oh, and R&R people!!! You should know how it makes a writer feel when you press that button at the bottom of the page!**

Katsuya smiled as he turned off his phone. Kyoko was worried about him, again. A part of him wanted to gently reprimand her, he was a grown man wasn't he? But another part warned him that Kyoko was more often right than not.

His smile widened as he remembered the rest of their conversation. Kyoko had told him of Tohru's misadventures today, something about mistaking bobby pins for chopsticks. That little girl was truly the second light in his life, but instead of taking away from Kyoko's bright light, she added her own glow to make such a beautiful display.

Kyoko…was he truly right in marrying her? She had been so young, only out of middle school. Sure, he had gone many nights without sleep during their engagement, trying to reason his love. She was only a child then, what right did he have to take her before she had barely lived? What if she fell in love with someone else when she was older, and knew a bit more about romance? The only feelings she probably had for him was infatuation, or that of a fatherly figure. Lord knows her own father had been anything but a role model. What if she thought she was in love, but wasn't?

Katsuya took a breath, and sat back. The thoughts from so many years ago were of no use now; she was his now, and she didn't seem to regret marrying him. For that, he could be grateful.

What was wrong with him, then? Falling in love with a middle school student? And not even until she was older, but proposing to her outright? Maybe he really was a pedophile. Or maybe…but that couldn't be right.

But maybe, some part of his spirit said in a quiet voice, maybe soulmates existed. And maybe they had just been born a few too many years apart. Maybe they met each other too quickly, and had so had to defy tradition to be together.

God, the "maybes" were getting to him.

He shook his head, and rifled through the bag he had brought with him, looking for medicine for his cough. After emptying the contents onto his bed, he was forced to admit that he didn't pack any.

What a time to forget, Katsuya thought, strangely disaffected by the absence of medicine. Ah well, a night without medicine won't kill me.

He changed out of his work clothes, and into the old-fashioned robe he brought to sleep in. By the time his head hit the pillow, he was already asleep, more tired than he thought he was.

* * *

The fever raced through his body, leaving nothing unscathed. It felt like his throat had never heard of a concept called "water." Every part of him wanted to get up and drown in liquid, any liquid, but his limbs were in rebellion, and stayed firmly on top of the bed cover. He wanted to thrash, to convulse and warn someone, but no matter what he told his body, it would not follow him.

And then the visions began. Nightmarish, horrible images flashing across his eyes. His father, reprimanding him for deserting his promising teaching career. His father seemed near tears himself, and yet he was still shaking in fury.

"I was never supposed to be a teacher! I'm happier as I am now!" he yelled, but his father didn't seem to hear him.

Instead, he turned away and suddenly Katsuya could see, as if shadow had been hiding them all this time and now a light was on them, the rest of his family. They were gathered in twos and threes, scattered around, whispering to each other.

"You were right, my brothers and sisters. I have failed. Forget him. Forget everything about him."

The people nodded, agreeing to disinheriting him.

"No! Father! You haven't failed me! Why are you punishing me for doing what I wanted to do?" Katsuya yelled.

_He was never mad at you for becoming what you are, Katsuya._

Katsuya looked up. Kyoko's voice? he wondered, and the tears he didn't know he had been shedding stopped. His eyes locked on his father's and his father nodded, as if in agreement with Kyoko. He smiled, waved goodbye, and walked away, whistling that tune he had whistled so often in Katsuya's youth. Katsuya sighed, and looked around for Kyoko, trying to locate her voice.

_Katsuya…_

"Kyoko? Where are you?"

_Damn bastard!_

Katsuya reeled back, surprised at the venom in her voice. He had never heard her use that tone, not even when she screamed that she hated the world.

_What is he doing?_ wondered another voice, one from his family, _What does he think he's doing, marrying a girl so young?_

_I never knew our promising Katsuya had a fetish for miniskirts and middle school girls, _said another.

_You would think he would at least hide it, for professional reasons._

"What are you talking about?" cried Katsuya, "I love her!"

_Really?_ said one of the condescending voices,_ And how do you know if she loves you? What if she thought she was in love with you? Girls' hearts are fickle when they are that young._

"Why would she stay if she didn't?" he demanded.

_You got her pregnant! What was she to do, leave the child? Or make the child grow up without a father? She may not love you, but she at least loves the child! She is, at the very least, that mature and understands her situation._

"Kyoko's not that type of person! If she had a complaint, she would tell someone! Tell me!"

_How do you know? How do you know? How do you know?_ The voices faded away, the figures dissolving into the air with them. The question, however, still hung in the air, asking Katsuya the very things he had been avoiding for these many years.

"Kyoko…"

"You're very lonely, aren't you?" asked a quiet voice.

Katsuya's head snapped up and he saw a small girl standing before him. Her hair came down to her neck, its ends uneven, though it had been fastidiously cleaned. Her black eyes were nearly overflowing with tears, but nothing stained her porcelain cheeks. She wore a ceremonial robe, and her neck and hands were layered with the jewelry of the royal family, though the hem was torn and frayed, the fabric stained, the jewelry dented and dull. Her feet were bare and bruised, looking as if they had seen a thousand miles of dirt roads, nights under the open sky, and thorny paths.

"Who are you?" Katsuya asked dully, not really caring what the answer was.

"That's a difficult one, traveler. I cannot remember the last time I spoke, and I do not remember the last time I met someone traveling this way. But you can call me Takara, if you wish."

"Takara?"

"Yes, Takara. In any event, have you seen where you are?" she asked, head cocked to one side.

Katsuya looked around, curious as to what she asked. The world looked the same as it had been when his family members had disappeared, black with formless shadows. The only light was where Katsuya kneeled, though he could see the girl quite plainly, though she was several feet away.

"No," Katsuya said slowly, "Where are we?"

"Don't you hear it?" she asked, her eyes closed, the corners of her mouth lifted in a reminiscent smile.

Faintly, at the edge of his hearing, he heard what she was referring to. The rhythmic sounds of energy flowing in and out, crashing when it came into contact with the ground.

"The sea!" he said, getting up and starting in the direction of the noise.

"Is that what you hear?" the girl called Takara asked.

"Why? What do you hear?" he asked.

"Fue."

"Fue? Don't you mean a flute?"

"No. Fue."

Katsuya closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the thing she was hearing, but could only hear a few ghostly notes, darting in and out of his awareness.

"Goodbye, traveler," she said, taking a step towards her music.

"Wait!" he yelled after her, "You're leaving?"

She looked over her shoulder, and said in a voice that beguiled her apparent age, "I hope you will find your nirvana, traveler. I have searched many years for mine, and have yet to find it. Goodbye."

She left, her battered feet moving with absolute silence across the ground. He watched her leave, and vowed to himself that he would find whatever it is she was searching for, before he could end up like her. Wandering forever in this nothingness was something he would never do, even if he had to kill himself to avoid it.

Kill himself? Wasn't he already dead? Looking around, he realized the truth the apparitions of his family before had tried to hide. His heart, which he always thought no one could feel, sat motionless in his chest, and he was never so aware of a lack of movement.

His feet, without direction from him, began moving towards the direction of the waves. If he couldn't live anymore, he would at least surround himself with some of the greatest memories of his life.

The journey was longer than he had expected. Endless minutes went by, and he could have sworn the sound crept away, to a different location than he originally thought. He could see now why Takara would spend centuries following the sound of a fue. At times, the sound came from the way he had just come from, others from the very air around him.

_Would this search never end?_

He wondered if he should lie down and sleep, if things would look clearer in the proverbial morning. But no matter how he rationalized rest, his body would not listen. His entire being, not just his soul, wanted to find the ocean, and, though he never thought it, Kyoko.

Rationally, he knew she wasn't dead. He died in a hotel a few hundred miles away from Kyoko, and she wasn't even sick when he hung up the phone. Hopefully, if she had caught whatever he had, she would be smarter and go to a hospital about it. Tohru couldn't grow up without both of her parents, after all. And he could think of a spare handful of people who would take her in if Kyoko died.

Strange, how he could think of Kyoko's death as if it were a distant thing, not the end of someone he held so dear. But, after being dead himself, he had a different perspective on death.

His foot caught on some irregular thing on the flat surface he was used to, and he fell forward. His hands caught him, and he immediately winced. The objects he was grasping were jagged and cut his hands, though no blood flowed. What were these things? he thought. He looked up and saw something.

Rocks.

Rocks, the kind you would find around a shore, guarding the haven from those who couldn't handle a little sharpness. No longer caring if it was a trap (after all, who would want to trap him?) he scrambled to his feet and plunged forward, flinching with every step.

Suddenly, the rocks were gone, only left with chilling, fine sand. Katsuya blinked, greeted with an alien view. The water was a cool gray, the sand a darker shade. The sky above was darker still, though the darkest was ultimately the rocks he had ran over. The waves crashed down, the foam on them the lightest color, a dull whitish-gray.

This wasn't the ocean. This was a pale reproduction of one, painted with a color-blind hand. Katsuya collapsed against the sand, devastated and tired. He had searched this long for a scene that, ultimately, would only bring back memories he didn't wish to remember. Alone and devastated, he did the only thing he knew to do: He cried.

He cried for things he didn't even know he could cry for. He cried for the hearts Tohru would have to break, and he cried for the times when her own would be broken. He cried for the family that had deserted him, and Kyoko's as well. He cried for the people in the world who lived their lives without finding someone to spend it with. He cried for those who were ostracized, and those who were so appalled or desolate they took their own lives rather than live on. He cried for Takara, wandering for eternity for a sound that would, in the end, only make her weep as he was weeping, for the promise of a paradise lost.

Though he wasn't paying attention, the tears that were falling down changed the sand beneath him. The sand, though in tiny, miniscule amounts, amounts no eye could see, started to color. A deep, red color saturated the sand around him, staining the world. When the waves crashed down on the turf, the water also started to change, though to a bottle green instead. As Katsuya cried for the world, he unwittingly nurtured the color, bringing color to this monochromatic world.

When the sea and sand met on the rocks, they joined them, bringing out their own hidden color, a dark, royal blue. And when the sand, rocks, and sea spray met the air, it also began to metamorphose into a rich purple. And Katsuya was still grieving, unaware of the change until, at last, his tears spent, he looked up, and gasped at the change he had wrought onto this realm.

"What is this?" he wondered, the last of his tears falling to the ground.

_Katsuya…_

"Kyoko?" he asked, wondering how long he had stayed like that.

_Katsuya, where am I? I hear your voice, but I can't see you? And…what are you doing here?!?!_

"Kyoko?"

_Get away from me! I have nothing more to do with you! You were the ones who got rid of me…don't tell me that! Mom, Dad…Why would you say something like that?_

"Kyoko! They're not your parents!"

A wail sounded, and Katsuya flinched. He could feel Kyoko's feet pounding on the ground, running from her parent-ghosts.

"Kyoko! Just come to the sound of the waves!" he yelled, but was no longer certain she could hear him.

He waited for endless moments, not wanting to leave before she came here, and see no one on this beach. He looked behind him, but could see no end to the rocks, and so could not know when she came. If she came. He had no guarantee that she had heard his last words.

"Katsuya!" the voice he had missed so much yelled.

"Kyoko! How are you? How did you die? And…what did you do to your hair?!?!" She fell in his arms, and he wrapped them around her, caressing her back.

"Katsuya, what are you doing here? One minute I was lying on the pavement, the next I was here, and my parents…" She broke off in a sob.

"Were never there, Kyoko. They were meant to camouflage your descent into this world. So you wouldn't know you were dead until it was too late."

"But I knew I was already dead. I had been hit by a car and Jari was there--"

"Jari?"

"A kid I had grown attached to. He had the strangest hair…"

"Speaking of hair…what happened to yours?"

"Oh, I cut it a few years ago…do you like it?"

"Sure." He said, stroking it warily.

"Oh God, Katsuya," she said, laughing, and then burying her head in his chest, crying her own tears.

When she had spent the last of her tears, she looked up and asked the question he had been waiting for: "Where are we, anyway?"

"A beach. And we have all eternity to enjoy it together."


End file.
